West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1887-11-04
THE ANARCHISTS.
Baltimore sun.

Oscar w. Neebe, found guilty of
murder was sentenced to fifteen
years Imprisonment.
The history of the offense for
which all but che last mentioned
are condemned to be hanged on the
llth of the present month possesses
extraordinary interest. About the
first Of May, 1886, the workingmen
of most OF the industrial centres of
the. United States were much inter
ested in a movement having for its
object the reduction of the time or
working day to eight hours. The
circumstances were taken advantage
OF bv the anarchists of Chicago TO
create a disturbance and further
their propaganda. In the midst of
the excitement growing out of the
eight-hour movement a meeting was
called by certain anarchists to be
held on the evening of May 4, at
the Hay on Randolph street,
in the west division OF the city of
Chicago. The meeting was address.
ed by Spies, Parsons and Fielden.
About 1880 p. NJ, while Fielden
was making the closing speech, sew
eral companies of policemen, $50 in
number. marched into the crowd
from the station, on Desplaines
street, and ordered the meeting to
diSperse. As soon as the order was
given some one threw among the pO-
licemen dynamite bomb, which
struck began, one Of the police of
flcers, and killed him. As a result
of the throwing of the bomb and OF
the pistol shots that followed, six
policemen besides Began were killed
and sixty more seriously wounded
No one of the convicted men, it APP
pears, threw the bomb with his own
hands. The verdict of the jury in
the trial, which was concluded on
August 20, 1856, found the defend
ants guilty of numbering Degan,
from having been accessories before
the act. Some of the siXty-nine
counts of the indictment charged
them with being present, advising,
encouraging, aiding and abetting
the throwing of the bomb, and 9th
ers charged them with abetting
zone Rudolph Schnaubelt,' who has
escaped arrest, in the preparation
of the crime. An Illinois statute
makes the accessory equally liable
with the principal, and responsible
for his act. The maker Of the bomb
which consisted, it appears. of
two semi-g iObular halves connected
bv bolt,and held together by nut
screwing upon the end Of the bolt"
was Louis Lingg, who came TO
this country from Germany in the
summer of 1855. His bombs were
of about the size of a baseball, and
were made to be exploded by the
external application of fire. Lingg
was shown 70 have been engaged up
To Nav / i'm the manufacture of
bombs exactly resembling the one
thrown at the Haymarket. 1t was
shown also, among other things,
that Lingg was member OF an as
ISOLATION pledged to the use of force
to overthrow law and bring about a
social revolution and a redistribu-
tiOn of property. a leader in the
enterprise was August Spies, who
was born in Hesse, came to this
country in 1872, became a socialist
in 1877, and gained the position of
editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung in
1884. He was the ablest ard
most influential of the Chicago
anarchists. Adolph Fischer, Mi
chael Schwab and Oscar Neebe
were among the stockholders of the
Zeitung. Fischer was born in Ger
many aud was a printer by trade.
Finding the Zeitung not sufficiently
radical in its views, he at one time
started a rival paper, Der Anarch-
lst, which had brief existence.
Schwab came from Mannheim, Ger
many, in 1879, and associated him
self with Spies in his journalistic
work. George Engel, who was Fisch-
er's partner in Der Anarchist, came
10 America from Cassel, Germany,
in 1878. Albert Parsons, the only
native American among the convic-
ted, was born in Montgomery, Ala
bans, and was a printer by trade.
Having become a Republican, he
obtained appointments to Federal
offices at Austin, Texas, where he
married a mulatto in 1872. Having
been driven from the South, he went
to Chicago, where he followed his
trade for some time, and then be-
came a professional labor agitator.
In 1884 he became editor of the
Alarm, the organ Of an advanced
group of anarchists Samuel Field
en-, born in Lancashire, England,
came TO America in 1868. He was
an operative in a cotton mill in New
York in that year, and has since
worked at Chicago as laborer. In
1880 he met Spies and Parsons in
the Liberal League, and in 1888 he
devoted himself to the occupation of
travelling agitator. \ meeting,
including these persons and others,
was held on May ,, at which q plan
Of operations, originated by Engel,
.